Broccoli Salad

This is a creature I had not encountered before moving to the Midwest.  I am not going to engage in culinary anthropology and draw the sweeping conclusion that this is therefore a Midwestern dish (as my lack of exposure may derive merely from a vegetable-deficient upbringing rather than geographical particulars), though there is clearly a link between the Midwest love of mayonnaise-covered fruit and most broccoli salad recipes.

I have discovered a superior dressing recipe (originally for pasta salad, thanks again Cooking Light!) that is ideally suited to a vegetable salad such as this.  It doesn't break (as many a typical mayo-and-vinegar broccoli salad dressing does), but stays creamy even when made a full day in advance.  It also employs buttermilk which significantly reduces the fat content of the dressing versus a full mayo dressing.  And it's got a little zing from chili (or chile) powder.  This dressing works well for other vegetable salads as well, including coleslaw.

I am using chive flowers right now b/c 1) I'm just so tickled you can eat them, 2) they've got only another couple of days before they dry up in the garden, and 3) they're really pretty in the salad.  Use 1/4 cup chopped chives or red onion instead, if you want.

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BBQ Lasagne with low-carb barbecue sauce & Minced pork platter

First of all, I think this is pure genius, though I also doubt I'm the first person to think of it.  All the delicious, drippy goodness of a pulled pork bbq sandwich in a casserole.  Hellah good stuff. 

In case all the low-carb talk
disturbs you, focus here!

Since I'm preparing the lasagne for someone who has a medical need to significantly limit carb intake, I've done a thing or two I might not ordinarily do (and feel free to undo them, if you choose).  I made my own low-carb bbq sauce because I wasn't happy with how much sugar commercial barbecue sauces contain.  If you have a favorite bbq sauce recipe or product, by all means use that.  But my low-carb recipe follows. 

My low-carb sauce is a hybridization of two recipes--Better Homes & Gardens and South Beach--that reduce sugar by different means, one with artificial sweeteners (in the form of commercial low-carb ketchup) and the other with unsweetened tomato puree.  The two recipes are comparable in terms of calories and carbs per serving.  The ketchup-based recipe, however, is far higher in sodium than the puree-based recipe, but was also determined to have far better bbq sauce flavor by an Expert Jury of Tasters (my and my hubbie).  So a mash-up it is.

I also replaced one layer of lasagne noodles out of the usual three with a shredded cabbage/carrot mix, that is, undressed coleslaw.  This is actually a great idea for making lasagne more nutritionally dense and getting more veg into one's day.  Roasted slices of eggplant or zucchini work great for many lasagnes, but I kept with the barbecue theme and picked coleslaw.  If you prefer, use a full box of lasagne and make the middle layer noodles.

For the minced pork, I oven-braised a 2 lb. uncured pork leg roast ("fresh ham"), minced it in the food processor, served half for dinner with some of the aforementioned sauce and reserved the other half for this recipe.  The recipe for that dish will follow as well.  You could also use pulled pork shoulder ("pork butt") or finely chopped pork loin.  If you wish to serve the low-carb bbq sauce with the minced pork platter supper, make an additional half-recipe of the sauce.

Lastly, nutritional info calculated using Sparkrecipes.com for the lasagne follows the recipe.  And I forgot to take pictures...sorry!...but you all have seen a lasagne before, right? ;-)

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I feel like chicken (and waffles) tonight!

Chicken and waffles is usually compromised of fried chicken over sweet waffles with gravy.  I like making a pot pie filling (freezing it ahead) and serving that mixture over savory yeast waffles. 

The waffle batter needs to be started in advance by several hours, so it's definitely a prep-ahead recipe.  Either start them the night before or the morning of Dinner Day (obviously start them the night before if you plan to make them for regular ol' breakfast). 

If you want to make the waffles and freeze them in advance, that makes the fastest dinner prep ever...just reheat the filling and thaw the waffles.  But if your family is like mine, you have to find time to make waffles in secret if you don't plan to serve them immediately.

Here is the recipe I use for pot pie filling (you can use shredded leftover chicken and butter instead of chicken fat if you're not doing the whole chicken shebang).

Here is the recipe I use for yeast-leavened waffles from Better Homes and Gardens.  Using oil instead of butter makes the waffles fluffier and less prone to becoming soggy.

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Salmon Pastrami: Condiments



Salmon pastrami on a cracker with
crême fraîche and raw capers

My preferred combination of toppings for Salmon Pastrami rolls is sour cream, caramelized capers and blanched onions.  Crême fraîche, pickled onions, caramelized onions, raw capers and chopped chives are also good choices. 

Blanching onions takes the raw, heartburn-y bite out of them, but leaves their flavor and crunch.  While briny, raw capers cut the richness of salmon, caramelizing capers transforms them into a sweet-but-tart condiment with a caviar-like pop in the mouth.  Crême fraîche is a milder cousin to sour cream, but is often hard to find (and expensive when you do).  Making it at home is a snap with buttermilk powder.

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Salmon Pastrami

This is desert island food for me.  As in, if I were stuck on a desert island and could only have one thing to eat, this would seriously be it.  The recipe is adapted from the cookbook from the world-famous, but currently-defunct, NYC restaurant Tavern on the Green.

This is technically a kind of ceviche, as the salmon is cured by the acid from the vegetable-lime juice mixture.  The "pastrami" part of it is the peppery crust you build on top with layers of molasses and coarsely crushed spices.  It's a process that takes days to finish, but is so worth it.  You can freeze it at just about any point once the curing is done: you can freeze the cured, uncrusted fish and apply the spice crust later, you can apply the spices and freeze it whole, or you can freeze it sliced.

Which piece to use

You'll need a fairly large piece of salmon (fussing with pre-cut "fillets" makes slicing it later a pain in the patoot).  You can do a whole side of salmon, but that does make a LOT of pastrami.  If you want to use a smaller piece, I suggest cutting (or have the guy at the fish counter do this) the piece outlined on the picture at right.  The "tail" piece behind it is too thin to slice nicely, and the rest of the fillet ahead of it tends to be wider than a standard knife, which makes carving the finished pastrami difficult. 

It's also best to use fish that's not been previously frozen.  Fish, like fruit, is very delicate at the cellular level and a freeze-thaw cycle makes the flesh mushy.  When you carve the finished pastrami, the firmer it is the better. 

How to slice finished pastrami

It's hard to write instructions for proper slicing of the finished pastrami (at least for me it is).  You want to slice thin slices on the diagonal, kind of like cutting a beef brisket, without cutting through the salmon skin.  Use a knife that's at least 2" wider than the fish.  Hold the knife parallel to the front edge of the fish and angle it diagonally in the vertical plane (like a forward slash if you're looking at it from the side, and you're right-handed).  Saw the knife gently toward the skin following the diagonal line, and then lift at the last millimeter to cut the flesh away from the skin. This -->     picture illustrates the angle of the cut pretty well.

And then there's serving the finished pastrami.  You can put a single slice on a cracker with a pinch of sour cream for an appetizer, or serve it rolled in a flatbread with capers, blanched onions and sour cream (my favorite) or put it on rye toast for a faux Reuben.  You can put a little or a lot of work into preparing the extras for a salmon pastrami sandwich, so I'll have a separate post regarding my preferred condiments.

And now...the recipe:

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Broccoli Rice Salad

I spent part of a summer in France many, many moons ago, and to be expected, my culinary world was transformed by the exposure to French foods and French cooks.  However, not so expectedly, my favorite foods from this trip are the French gastronomic equivalents of PB&J (which they do NOT have in France)...ham and butter sandwiches, grilled sausage served in split baguettes instead of hot dog buns, salads made of a single perfectly ripe and lightly dressed vegetable, fresh-picked plums (oh the plums!), and rice salads. 

I was one of about a dozen volunteers, both French and de l'étranger , and we took it in turns to cook for the group.  Several times we had salads composed of rice mixed with leftover meats, black olives, chopped fresh onion and peppers, summer corn, and just about anything else that needed using up.  Like I said, it's not fancy food, but it was revelatory for me.  I had no idea leftovers could be, well, delicious!  It holds at room temperature very well, too, so it's an excellent potluck/pitch-in/picnic dish.

The transition between the tough, outer
layers and the tender, light green "meat"
is clearly delineated.

As implied, you can make a rice salad out of just about anything on hand.  A few cups of rice (even that can be a leftover), a couple cups of cooked chicken, beef, pork, canned tuna, salmon mixed with a couple cups of vegetables (fresh or leftover), any herbs that are handy, some olives or pimiento and a little bit of salad dressing is all you need. 

The following salad uses up raw broccoli stems and is a vegetarian/vegan (depending on the exact ingredients of your salad dressing) dish.  To peel the broccoli, cut the bottom inch or so of stem off.  Stand the stem on its "floret" end (after removing the florets for another use), and use a knife to slice the woody peel away.  Then shred the broccoli using a food processor or hand grater. 

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Berry Good Smoothie

"It smell delicious!" says my almost-3yo.  He has no clue there are beets in it...shhhh!!  This is my latest attempt to slip more vegetables into my kids' snacking routines.  You can use whatever combo of berries you wish, just be sure to get about 3-4 cups of berries total.

This recipe makes a lot of mix.  I needed 4 full ice cube trays to stash it all.  It also has a high mess/stain factor, and I'd use paper towels or a red dish cloth to mop up after yourself.  Be prepared.

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